A Raga (IAST: rāga), Raag or Ragam, literally means "coloring,
tingeing, dyeing". The term also refers to a concept close to melodic
mode in Indian classical music. Raga is a remarkable and central feature of
classical Indian music tradition, but has no direct translation to concepts
in the classical European music tradition. Each raga is an array of melodic
structures with musical motifs, considered in the Indian tradition to have
the ability to "color the mind" and affect the emotions of the audience.

A raga consists of at least five notes, and each raga provides the
musician with a musical framework. The specific notes within a raga can be
reordered and improvised by the musician, but a specific raga is either
ascending or descending. Each raga has an emotional significance and symbolic
associations such as with season, time and mood. The raga is considered a
means in Indian musical tradition to evoke certain feelings in an audience.
Hundreds of raga are recognized in the classical Indian tradition, of which
about 30 are common. Each raga, state Dorothea E. Hast and others, has its
"own unique melodic personality".

There are two main classical Indian music traditions, North Indian
(Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic), and the concept of raga is shared by
both. Raga are also found in Sikh traditions such as in Guru Granth Sahib,the primary scripture of Sikhism. Similarly it is a part of the
qawwali tradition found in Sufi Islamic communities of South Asia. Some
popular Indian film songs and ghazals use rāgas in their compositions.

Ali Akbar Khan -

Ali Akbar Khan (14 April 1922–18 June 2009) was a Hindustani classical
musician of the Maihar gharana, known for his virtuosity in playing the
sarod. Trained as a classical musician and instrumentalist by his father,
Allauddin Khan, Khan also composed several classical ragas and film scores.
He established a music school in Calcutta in 1956, and the Ali Akbar College
of Music in 1967, which moved with him to the USA and is now based in San
Rafael, California, with a branch in Basel, Switzerland.

Khan was instrumental in popularising Indian classical music in the
West, both as a performer and as a teacher. He first came to America in 1955
on the invitation of violinist Yehudi Menuhin and later settled in
California. He was a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Music at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.

Khan was accorded India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma
Vibhushan, in 1989. Nominated five times for the Grammy Award, Khan was a
recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the National Endowment for the
Arts's National Heritage Fellowship.

Illness And Death -

Khan was based in the United States for the last four decades of his
life. He toured extensively until he was prevented from doing so by ill
health in the period up to his death from renal failure.

Personal Life -

Ali Akbar Khan married three times (first Zubeida Begum, then
Rajdulari Khan Sahiba, and last one Mary Khan), and is survived by eight sons
and four daughters. Six of his children and one grandson are musicians:
Aashish Khan Debasharma (b 1939, sarod), Dhyanesh Khan (1941–90; sarod),
Ameena Perrera (Sitar), Pranesh Khan (tabla), Rajesh Khan (sarod), Alam Khan
(b 1982, sarod), Manik Khan (Sarod); and his grandson, Shiraz Ali Khan
(sarod).

Awards -

Khan was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1967 and the Padma Vibhushan in
1989, among other awards. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991. In
1997, Khan received the National Endowment for the Arts' prestigious National
Heritage Fellowship, the United States' highest honour in the traditional
arts. Khan has received five Grammy nominations.

Sarod (Instrument) -

The sarod (or sarode) (सरोद) is a stringed
instrument of India, used mainly in Indian classical music. Along with the
sitar, it is among the most popular and prominent instruments in Hindustani
classical music. The sarod is known for a deep, weighty, introspective sound,
in contrast with the sweet, overtone-rich texture of the sitar, with
sympathetic strings that give it a resonant, reverberant quality. It is a
fretless instrument able to produce the continuous slides between notes known
as meend (glissandi), which are important in Indian music.